• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

*Official* 2022 New Zealand Tour of England, Ireland, Scotland & Netherlands

TheBrand

TheBrand

First Class Debutant
Just switching to England for a second .... with Crawley's failures - is there any possible recall for Rory Burns in Bazball era? Thought he was pretty good tbh, scored tough hundreds even if he only averaged just over 30.
 
S

SteveNZ

Cricketer Of The Year
Bahnz said:
Amongst all the griping, Mitchell's haul of 538 runs is the best ever by an NZ bat in a series of 3 or fewer matches (just nosing ahead of Baz's 535 v India in 2014). Whodda thunk it?
Click to expand...
I love it, especially as a mate in our golf tour group chat said 'Mitchell, at 5?!?!' with an 'insane' emoji before the first Test. I don't imagine we'll ever stop dining out on that message
 
S

SteveNZ

Cricketer Of The Year
And yeah, I mean we're sooking less than 12 months on from a WTC triumph...but we have failed to win four Test series' since then. That does seem sook-worthy. And it's not like we don't still fawn over the achievement.

I think the worst part is how royally ****ed up we've got the Ajaz thing. We wish upon stars to have a guy who can take wickets on wearing wickets, such a guy takes 14-for, then he bowls 2 overs in the next 12 months - and we play 9 Tests during that time. Then presumably, we'll take him to Pakistan, and expect him to do well with very little cricket before hand? And we play Michael Bracewell ahead of him, a guy who actually only averaged 6 more runs per innings than Ajaz last summer in FC cricket.

But hey, Mitchell and Blundell are big positives, obviously. Massively impressed with Mitchell's consistency but also that Blundell has stepped into Watling's role and made it his own. And both did it consistently, knowing their side were ****ed without them.
 
Moss

Moss

International Captain
SteveNZ said:
I think the worst part is how royally ****ed up we've got the Ajaz thing. We wish upon stars to have a guy who can take wickets on wearing wickets, such a guy takes 14-for, then he bowls 2 overs in the next 12 months - and we play 9 Tests during that time. Then presumably, we'll take him to Pakistan, and expect him to do well with very little cricket before hand? And we play Michael Bracewell ahead of him, a guy who actually only averaged 6 more runs per innings than Ajaz last summer in FC cricket.
Click to expand...
There are threads doing the rounds on twitter how Stokes getting after Ajaz in those 2 overs at Lord's was series-defining, and how different things might have been if the ball which beat Stokes had bowled him. Wouldn't go so far as to completely agree on the second half of that sentence, but it's a real black mark on the management including Kane as a leader. Contrast with England's handling of Leach, and willingness to think outside "Anderson, Broad and the support act" with regard to bowling composition, I feel that's where England successfully closed the gap (that existed on paper) between the two lineups.
 
Last edited:
jcas0167

jcas0167

International Regular
I wonder how much the injury to de Grandhomme and then losing Kane to Covid played in Bracewell becoming the preferred spin option for the second test to avoid having Jamieson batting at 7. That rationale obviously doesn't exist for the third test though with Kane back and Blundell at 7.
 
KungFu_Kallis

KungFu_Kallis

International 12th Man
straw man said:
England would absolutely have attacked him and they surely would've had some success as in the two overs Ajaz bowled in the first test. But as that cricinfo article pointed out, even in the second of those overs Ajaz beat and almost clean bowled Stokes. He's a mile more accurate than Bracewell and is not without T20 success either, having had a very good series in Bangladesh a couple of seasons ago. He has guile and he has 273 FC wickets to fall back on.

We have to imagine Ajaz under the captaincy of Stokes instead of this confidence-crushing miserable you-may-not-concede-a-run style of leadership and selection under Williamson/Stead. At times this series Leach has been none or one for seventy and hit for a few sixes, and Stokes has backed him, not blindly but instead with a 'hey let's try this plan' or 'we'll try get this batsman out like this'. It's so great that Leach took a ten-fer the same match we left our spinner out for a part-timer (also because Leach seems like a great guy and someone that's had to toil hard) because it throws into sharp relief just how monumentally abysmal NZ's management of Ajaz has been. You can't even ignore it or escape it any more, it's just so damn obvious. Similar left arm orthodox bowlers, accurate, experienced - with enormous captain & coach backing vs totally without captain & coach backing.
Click to expand...
Sad but true. I am actually trying to think of a better NZ spinner in all of history than Ajaz. Can someone help me out?
 
CharlesLara

CharlesLara

U19 12th Man
nzfan said:
It's not pretty by any means whatsoever. It's exactly like someone bowling that has taken it up for two years for pass time in the nets. Where is the body behind the ball, the energy that goes into the load up, the high to low arm, the wrist angles, the side on planting of feet, pivot and follow through. If all of that existed he'd have been bowling fine. Shows clearly we have no spin coach to fall back on that knows something about spin bowling. Gary will not be able to help there and neither can Jurgensen.

In fact I'd start with the grip with Bracewell, the ball is tucked way too deep in the palm. Most likely his index finger is doing far less work than they should.
Click to expand...
What like a real life actual spinner? Bracewell is the some sort of bizarre real life example of off spin as an NFT, along with the Beast nickname and all. 6 and out type behaviour.

You're describing what they tell 14 year old spinners in academies all over the land, only problem is, Bracewell at 16/17 was a wicketkeeper batsman and, as you mentioned in a post earlier bowled himself more overs for Wellington to get a shot as well. We were being told he's in the side and has potential cause he has nice shape on the ball? What kind of nonsense is this LOL. I'm gonna ignore the fact we have a spinner whose sitting on the sidelines who has lead Plunket Shield wicket taking charts multiple times, is one of only 3 guys in the history of the game to take a 10fer, has bowled us to overseas victories and tbh, as much as we wanna find fault, Ajaz at his very worst is an accurate docile experienced spinner who you can at least SET A FIELD too. Two overs against a guy whose ruined far superiors bowlers in a mood that was pure gamble.. we ended up a bowler down AND STILL.

Now is Bracewell to blame for being in the squad and then being selected, definitely not. I think we can all agree that management and their risk averse mentality are the biggest culprits here, but we cannot fool ourselves into thinking this isn't what Bracewell wanted? He wasn't near ready, got sold the dream, lived it out and its not only hurt the side and but been at the expense of the the confidence of teammates. NOT blaming him, but I'm not quite in the "feel sorry Bracewell" camp either. Is he even a better bat or bowl than Rachin? I mean leessbereaaalll.
 
Last edited:
KungFu_Kallis

KungFu_Kallis

International 12th Man
TheBrand said:
Just switching to England for a second .... with Crawley's failures - is there any possible recall for Rory Burns in Bazball era? Thought he was pretty good tbh, scored tough hundreds even if he only averaged just over 30.
Click to expand...
More chance of them picking Royboy though, ticks more aggressive boxes. Or even Josboss to open.
 
Last edited:
S

SteveNZ

Cricketer Of The Year
Moss said:
There are threads doing the rounds on twitter how Stokes getting after Ajaz in those 2 overs at Lord's was series-defining, and how different things might have been if the ball which beat Stokes had bowled him. Wouldn't go so far as to completely agree on the second half of that sentence, but it's a real black mark on the management including Kane as a leader. Contrast with England's handling of Leach, and willingness to think outside "Anderson, Broad and the support act" with regard to bowling composition, I feel that's where England successfully closed the gap (that existed on paper) between the two lineups.
Click to expand...
I dunno about series-defining, but I definitely see the point (and didn't know Ajaz almost bowled him). The issue is, Kane is a poor captain of front-line spinners. Ajaz got tapped by Stokes, sure, but England lost their fifth wicket with more than 100 to get and he was never seen again with two RHers at the crease. Then he's dropped, for a guy who averaged 19 all summer. England's top order has 5 RHers out of 7, yet they went with the guy spinning it into them because he batted at 7. Lame. There's no doubt CdG's injury hurt us in that respect, but we had to have a back-up plan...and the one we chose was ****.

Leach was cooked in the Ashes. Now he thinks he's a hero. Probably how Ajaz felt in Mumbai last year, and now he'd feel like a net bowler. Actually now that I think about it, I bet Baz wanted Stokes to get after Ajaz in the knowledge Kane wouldn't bowl him, and he'd probably be dropped.
 
Immenso

Immenso

International Vice-Captain
KungFu_Kallis said:
Sad but true. I am actually trying to think of a better NZ spinner in all of history than Ajaz. Can someone help me out?
Click to expand...
Dunno.

But Ajaz has only really played one full test in non-favourable conditions. By once, I mean the captain not ignoring him if the seamers are dominating. That was in wellington when 2 Sri Lankans batted a whole 4th day undefeated with rain on fifth.

He's missed a lot of spinners' graveyards tests at e.g. Hagley and the Basin. Not something Vettori or J Bracewell (or Santner) etc got to do.

So, his record is probably conditions-biased in his favour.

12 months ago (pre his 14-fer, and after TBH), this seemed good management and use of overflowing bowling resources. Now, it's judged as undermining the poor man's confidence ... and Stead doesn't know what he's doing, Kane hates spinners.

1656317432429.png

But, I sort of agree. I've never felt more confident in an NZ spinner bowling in Asia (or generally once it starts to turn, wherever) than I have in Ajaz. E.g. Him doing well in India last year didn't surprise me at all (I'm not saying a 10-fer didn't surprise me ...)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Top